I could have posted this at 4am, because I have been awake since then, just not mentally awake. This is becoming a pattern for DS 5 1/2 mon. Waking up at 3:30 or 4, I let him fuss, kick, whine until it turns into full on crying. When I go in he is WIDE awake, there is no letting this kid CIO. So I get him up and feed him, he is hungry. I know kids go through phases etc. but I can't function at work getting up at 4 am! He used to sleep from about 8-6. I started the bedtime routine earlier thinking that going to sleep earlier may help (from heathy sleep habits book), but that didn't work either! I nurse before bed and he eats for a long time, but maybe he needs more? We haven't introduced solids yet b/c of allergies, but maybe it's time. I know that introducing food in the beginning is just to get them used to food and doesn't fill them up or replace a meal.

I know I am very lucky to have a child that used to STTN, b/c I know some still don't at this age. I'd be fine getting up at 2 to feed him, but by 4 I have no time to get back to sleep before I have to get up for the day. Any suggestions? Dealing with 20, 5 year olds all day doesn't really work on a few hours of sleep!

He probably just needs to eat more, unfortunately. My DD had a sleep regression at 5.5 months but I went back to work then so I always assumed it had to do with that, not growth. What time is his last evening feeding? When do you normally go to sleep? I wonder if you could feed him while he's asleep right before you hop into bed to kind of top him off? That might get him through the night. The other thing to consider is he's getting old enough to train you. You might want to be careful about going in if he's just enjoying your company. PS - could he be waking because he is he teething and figuring "what the heck, I could eat right now MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!"

My LO won't be here until January, so take this with a grain of salt, but I can think of a few possible solutions. The first is what Lisa said, try dream feeding to see if he is just getting hungry and if that will stretch out his night another hour or two. The second would be if dreamfeeding doesn't work, to pre-emptively wake him up not so close to your actual wake up time so that you and he are both still sleepy and will be more likely to go back to bed and finish out the night sleeping. I've heard that the first 3-4 hours of sleep are the most important (and seems to be true for me), so if you are going to take this route, maybe choose 2am once you've gotten a good enough stretch to not interrupt your needs, but still early enough that he has a good chance of going back to bed. The third might be to wait until he naturally wakes at 4, but not wait until he is in full blown crying and really awake, and then not turning on lights or anything, just feed and put back to bed. This is sort of what I've done with my puppy ... maybe a bad analogy... but anyways... when she wakes up during the night (any time between 3 and 5 is normal for her) I let her out, give her some food, and put her back in the crate without turning on any lights or talking to her. I am intending the message to be "I hear you, I will fullfill your needs, but it is still night and you need to go back to bed". HTH!!

Take this w/ a block of salt b/c I go to bed by 9 and am up at 5 even w/o an alarm clock [I usually wake up naturally around 4.30] Can't you go to bed earlier until he outgrows it? Whatever you are doing at night after he goes to bed, do in the AM. Then adjust your schedule when he starts sleeping longer.

Similar to what bostongirl said, I've heard of parents waking their child up to eat at a chosen time to avoid that awkward not-quite-night/not-quite-day wake-up time. I only did it once with DD, and she handled it fine. Good luck!

I would check with your pedi about starting solids (even though you are right that it can take awhile before solids provide actual nutrition), if he's waking because he is hungry the solid food will fill him up for longer stretches.
Could he be waking because he's cold? The past few weeks it's gotten much chillier outside - is he dressed appropriately, ie sleep sack, heavy weight pajamas etc.
Has he been napping during the day in a crib? I'm assuming he's in daycare and they are putting him down on a regular schedule (ie 2 naps a day for at least an hr at a time) but worth a check.
Assuming he's not hungry, cold, overtired then my best guess is he is approaching a developmental milestone such as sitting up, going on all fours, rolling over etc that he is waking up to "practice" and which is over stimulating his brain and preventing sleep. My daughter had temporary periods (2-3 weeks at a time) of poor sleeping all through her first year and looking back they were always preceding her learning a new physical skill. It sucks for a few weeks but it sounds like you are doing everything right and hopefully he will outgrow it and move on to the next phase soon!

As others have said, it may be a phase. And I'm with ALF - when sleep issues crept in I made sure to go to bed after the 8:00 bottle. That way if one of my twins woke up, I'd gotten a good chunk of sleep. Have your DH help out with whatever is getting done at night (laundry, dishes whatever) and go to bed. It will really help you get over this early waking phase.Also - I love Weissbluth - but I also used Ferber. He has some good hints for early wakers that might work.

My DS had hip dysplasia and was in a full body cast for a while. Long story short, he went from being able to have 6oz bottles to only getting about 4oz before he ran into space issues with his expanding belly and the cast. This threw his sleep off big-time, since he needed more than 4oz in his belly to go through the night. So we talked with our Pedi and she said to give him his night bottle with a tablespoon of rice cereal in it. You have to mix it well and use a nipple that has a larger flow (we use Tommy Tippee and the "variable flow" nipples have what looks like an "X" on top). If you look at the rice cereal box, we basically followed the suggestion for "first-time feeding" but long-term. Even once he started eating more solids during the day, that little bit extra with the cereal in the bottle let him get through the night. We used bottles to feed him the whole time since he was a poor nurser, so that didn't change our nighttime routine at all. Once he was out of the cast and really doing solids 2-3 times a day, we didn't need to keep going with the rice cereal in the bottle. So we probably did it for 2-3 months and it seemed to really help him. You may want to try something like that to get him that extra hour that he (and YOU!) need...good luck - sleeping cycles change constantly it seems. Just when you get into a good routine, something new will happen and you have to re-adjust. My DS is just over 10 months old now and doing fine with the hips. He is typically a good sleeper, but there are those times...he also isn't great with crying it out. If he wakes himself up fully, it is MUCH MUCH worse to try to get him to go down again. It is easier to catch him when he is just stirring and help get him his binky/blanket/lovie/whatever to get him to realize it isn't time to wake up just yet.

Ajuly-I feel your pain because I also work in a school (a high school) and DD woke up in the night until 9 months. However, she never STTN until I sleep trained and now she sleeps 11 hours straight. My guess is that he is hungry and that you could try dream feeding him to see what will happen. I have friends who tried it with variable success.

In my experience, adding solids didn't change a thing. It's also not too early to start sleep training. When we slept trained DD, my DH would wake and change her diaper and put her back to bed. She stopped waking up when she realized she wasn't getting any food. She was older so it took about 3 nights of this. You may want to try that instead of CIO. DS will figure it out fairly soon.

Sounds like it could be one many things and here's to hoping it's just a phase. DS sleeps well for the sitter during the day, two naps each from 1-2 hrs long. I have him in a sleep sack now we'll see if that does anything. I do need to do something to prevent him from thinking that he'll always get fed if he wakes up, if he really does not need the food. Nene I like your suggestion of changing him and putting him back to sleep.
We have his 6 Mon appt next week and I will ask, but I know what her answer will be since at the 4 Mon appt she said don't feed him in the middle of the night after 4 mon!
I have been going to bed very early, but I require a lot of sleep, and still am exhausted. I need to learn to get used to it, just like other moms do! If I wake up and feed him and put him back to bed, I can't fall back asleep knowing I have to get up in an hour. Thanks for all the advice! I'll have to ask the pedi about solids.

ajuly -I was thinking of you at 4 am when DD woke up!! I didn't have anything to add yesterday because DD doesn't wake up often. When she does, it's usually around 2 am, so there is time to go back to sleep for a bit.One thing I have noticed the past 2 times she woke up is that she went back to sleep way sooner when I just held her in the rocking chair (didn't even rock), as opposed to walking around and shooshing and singing and all that. She typically stays awake for at least 2 hours, but the past 2 times she was up for less than an hour. I'm ready to try CIO, but DH thinks I am the devil when I try that so it will have to wait a little longer.

If it were me, I'd start going to bed pretty early and get my chores done in the morning before work until he outgrows this phase. Not fun, I'm no morning person, but it's better than going to bed at 10 and getting up at 4. Should be easy enough to start since you've got to be totally exhausted.

ajuly -I was thinking of you at 4 am when DD woke up!! I didn't have anything to add yesterday because DD doesn't wake up often. When she does, it's usually around 2 am, so there is time to go back to sleep for a bit. One thing I have noticed the past 2 times she woke up is that she went back to sleep way sooner when I just held her in the rocking chair (didn't even rock), as opposed to walking around and shooshing and singing and all that. She typically stays awake for at least 2 hours, but the past 2 times she was up for less than an hour. I'm ready to try CIO, but DH thinks I am the devil when I try that so it will have to wait a little longer.Posted by framerican51008

Just when you think you have their sleep schedule figured out, they change it on you! As DS gets older he is getting better at going to sleep on his own. We tried CIO a few months ago and knew it was way too early for it. If he gets up to eat in the middle of the night now I just plop him down in the crib and leave after I have fed him . He stirs for a while then falls asleep. I hope your DD waking up then was a one time thing!

Ajuly - we do a dream feed with DD. She has dinner (puree) and a few oz of formula around 6/6:30, then she usually wants to sleep by 7:30/8. I do wake her around 9:30 and give her about a 6 or 7oz bottle which she eats eagerly but also stays half asleep for. If I didn't do that, she'd awake around 2 or 3 for food.Is there any hypoallergenic cereal your DS could start? I'm pretty sure a coworker used the Happy Baby cereal for her DS who had lots of allergies in infancy and was on hypoallergenic formula.Good luck!

Fram - your post made me laugh b/c my DH also thinks I'm the devil if I try to let DS cry it out. DH gets SO distressed at the baby crying - it is cute that he cares about DS, but also makes me crazy. I don't enjoy him CIO either, but it is a necessary evil at some point. And my DS has gotten a lot better with whining/crying a tiny bit while he tries to turn over/re-adjust himself in bed without actually waking up and going into a full-out wail. So even if we don't let him CIO for 10 min+, waiting to see if the 10 seconds turns into an actual cry vs. him getting settled and being done is so important! They are definitely old enough to learn bad behaviors (eg: I cry and I get food, so I'm gonna cry some more!).

Ajuly - I hope your 6mo appt goes well and that you can get some advice from the pedi too about what might help to get the sleeping into a better pattern for you. GL!

I know CIO can be a heated topic (I personally will not use it for DD but think it works for some, but isn't 5.5 mo too young for that? Everything I have read says 6 mo is the minimum age for starting any type of sleep training.

Regardless - ajuly, I had a similar issue. DD slept thru the night from about 7 weeks to about 4 months. She is now almost 8 mo and I don't remember the last time she STTN. For us it has been a wide variety of issues, growth spurts (4 mo and 6 mo) are something that hasn't been mentioned and your baby sounds ripe for one at 5.5 months! We also went through ear infections (twice) and DD woke up screaming in pain every night for days before we figured it out, poor thing. We also have gone through (and still are going through) teething; DD suddenly cannot stand her wet diaper through the night; her room is too cold or too hot, etc, etc etc!

One thing I will note is that as I mentioned above, I can't do CIO. I genuinely don't believe she is conniving enough at 7.5 months to say to herself, hmmm, I cry so Mom/Dad will hold me. I think she wants to sleep as much as I want her to but something is preventing that. Every time I figure out what it is (like you said, just when you think you have it figured out it changes!) she stops crying and goes back to sleep.

I wish you the best of luck! You have received some great advice so far!

Sox- my pedi told me to start CIO at 4 months, it was an awful experience and DH was even more traumatized than me. We gave up pretty quickly after DS was in a state of shock, not "so tired that he fell asleep." One time that he did fall asleep he woke up screaming hours later, clearly he did not go to sleep happy. I'd rather rock my kid and nurse him to sleep than deal with a traumatized baby.He is actually falling asleep for naps on his own and sometimes at night. As he gets older it is getting better.